Evening is falling. Gray clouds scud overhead, and the tide is on the wane. Their passage downstream to Limekiln is swift.
“Over there,” Walsingham points, and the oarsman slushes his oar and the boat noses toward the northern bank where it is lined with wharves and cranes and forested with the masts of many ships. Somewhere in among them all they hope to find Master van Treslong’s fluyt, the Swan.
When they do, squeezed in between a carrack and an old-fashioned caravel, its repairs seem nearly complete, and its deck smells of pitch and resin and new-sawn wood. Van Treslong sits under a spread of rust-red sailcloth, talking to a man in a bearskin hat, a mug of beer at each of their elbows. Gone are the voluminous breeches, on are patched sailor’s slops.
“Eh!” he greets them. “I was about to set off to Southwark!”
His little eyes darken when he sees Dee’s pistol.
“Meneer, please, no firespark.”
Dee ignores him.
“This is Dr. Dee,” Walsingham introduces them.
“Dr. Dee?”
Van Treslong stills, but his eyes are lively, flitting from one to the other for a long moment before he gets to his feet and extends his hand to shake Dee’s. Dee curtly greets Van Treslong in his native language, then they slip into English.
“It’s an honor, Dr. Dee,” Van Treslong says, “to meet you alive.”
He catches the eye of the man in the bearskin cap. Broken nose, scarred knuckles. He gives a sort of a shrug. Both are looking at the gun. Only one ball, but who’d they rather take it?
Walsingham does not waste time. “Willem, Dr. Dee has some questions for you about what happened off Nez Bayard a few weeks ago.”
Van Treslong turns his questioning gaze on Walsingham.
“Sure,” he says, slowly. “But… you want me to tell him everything? I mean, it is your choice, Francis.”
Walsingham is puzzled.
“If you please, Willem.”
Van Treslong shrugs. His logbook sits on the table. For God and Profit. He opens it and finds the right page.
“So,” he starts, “I got your first note—the ciphered one—delivered twenty-first day of August. Off La Rochelle.”
He proffers the book so that they may see the mark he has made. There are plenty of them on the page, each signifying a certain event, probably entered by men who cannot read, let alone write. It forms, Dee supposes, a little code of its own based on shared knowledge. He would like to see more, at another time, but Van Treslong is going on.
“That message was about Quesada’s fleet. Shadowing it. To let you know when it entered the Narrow Sea. Yes?”
Walsingham agrees.
Van Treslong flips a page and runs his finger over the various further squiggles.
“Then, second message. Not coded. Brought by hand of Master Raleigh aboard the Pelican. This one I kept. Not every day Queen of England writes a man a letter, hein?”
He actually has it, still, kept safe in the back of the book. It is a single sheet of paper folded in thirds, with a hard disk of brittle wax, carefully preserved when the letter was cut open. He takes it out and passes it to Walsingham.
Walsingham reads out the letter. It is addressed to Willem van Treslong, Master of the ship the Swan, from Elizabeth, by Grace of God, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, delivered this day by hand of Master Raleigh of the Pelican. She requests and requires that in addition to the task entrusted to said Master van Treslong by Her Majesty’s most loyal and well-loved servant Master Francis Walsingham—to wit: the providing of information as to the whereabouts and disposition of his Catholic Majesty King Philip of Spain’s fleet, newly sent out of Bilbao to cajole, threaten, and menace the said queen and her peoples of England, as well as all those peoples of the Reformed faith—the said Master van Treslong is required to proceed henceforth with as much dispatch as is deemed necessary to stand off the promontory known as Nez Bayard, at sunup on the eighth day of September to wait for communication from another of Her Majesty the Queen’s servant, Dr. John Dee, who, should he, by the grace of God, find himself on said promontory, will request and require of Master van Treslong safe passage back to Her Majesty’s kingdom of England.
In consideration of such endeavorments thereby involved, and likewise conveyed by the hand of said Master Raleigh, Her Majesty’s treasury is able to advance to Master van Treslong the sum thirty ryals, cash, in addition to such moneys as agreed by Master Francis Walsingham, with another thirty ryals payable on delivery of said Dr. Dee to a port of his choosing.
“It says nothing about shooting me,” Dee says.
“No,” Van Treslong says, slightly shamefaced. “That instruction came a day later.”
“Another note? Who brought this one?”
Van Treslong refers back to his log once more.
“Master Peter Bone of the Foresight. Very stupid man. Bad sailor, too. Lovely boat though. Fast, you know?”
“We must ask him,” Dee says.
“He’s trying to make himself a second Hawkins,” Walsingham tells them, “trafficking souls along the Guinea coast.”
He means there will be nothing heard from him for months, if not years, if ever.
“You have that letter, too? The one that instructs I should be killed,” Dee prods.
Van Treslong does, but for various reasons Walsingham needs to persuade him to pass it over. When he does, it is on similar paper to the first, though smaller in dimension, and the seal hangs by its ribbon from one side of the paper, rather than from its center. Walsingham reads it through in silence, then passes it to Dee.
It is in the same hand as the first letter, intended as an addendum to that letter, which—it says—had been written earlier and sent before certain diverse and shocking details had been brought unto Her Majesty’s attention. This letter
